Satellite phone found with doctor who helped kill Osama

Islamabad: Pakistani officials have seized a satellite phone from the surgeon, allegedly recruited by the US to help find Osama bin Laden and currently at a jail in Peshawar, and have arrested four police commandos who were guarding him.

Dawn News said law enforcement officials Saturday seized the satellite phone from Shakeel Afridi at the Central Jail in Peshawar.

Four police commandos on guard at Afridi`s cell were arrested, and on interrogation, one of them confessed that he had provided the phone to Afridi.

Sources told Dawn that Afridi had made at least 68 calls from the phone, and most of them were long-distance calls.

Officials were assessing the phone data to ascertain the destinations of the calls.

The sources said that after a "controversial interview" with a US news channel a few weeks back, the authorities installed special equipment around the jail to check Afridi`s activities. They then traced the calls from his jail cell.

They said it was likely that the interview might have been conducted through the phone.

Maqsood-ur-Rehman, deputy superintendent of prisons, told Geo News that Afridi`s lawyer or brother, who had come to see him recently, might have smuggled the phone into the prison.